Graphics time bomb.
Not to overdramaticize, but that's the first thing that came to mind when I noticed an increasingly-annoying number of problems with my first-gen MacBook Pro w/ATI Radeon X1600. Single lines of miscolored pixels would appear in a Firefox window, and I'd drag the window around, only to have the pixels follow. Or I'd start QuickTime to play a movie, and midway in, a mostly green line would appear on the screen, flashing on and off annoyingly. Pausing the movie for awhile then pressing play again tended to solve it temporarily, but it was still annoying. Even weirder still were the cyan gradients that appeared on various UI elements. But worst of all was the screen flickering, then eventual crashes.
Detective work
Apparently, it's a heating issue. I first thought this was a problem with my external display, then later shifted suspicion to the GPU. Yesterday, I searched and found this VERY LONG thread on the Apple Forums. I have the exact same issues as what's described within, it's uncanny. While it lends itself well to "Aha!" moments, these glitches are a tough problem to describe in words alone, so I'm thankful other posters uploaded screenshots. Thanks to "macuser128" for these; he's been very persistent about getting the word out and I laud him:
Apple's Article TS2377 makes note of what sounds like a vaguely similar issue but with very different hardware, the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT. I wish the article included screenshots to communicate better.
I haven't seen an official announcement from Apple about this, but that may be because this affects older hardware, so it isn't as controversy-worthy as self-immolating new Mac minis (sad, sad humans). That doesn't change the fact that with an increasing number of people "waking up" to this problem and reporting it, the info should be easier to find. I'm hoping if you have the same problem but didn't know what the heck it was yet found my blog post through a search, that you're now in a better position to get help.
What am I doing about it?
I'm trying smcFanControl to keep things cool as some have prescribed, but longer-term, I still have some months of AppleCare coverage and am prolly going to take my baby down to the Apple Store to get the logic board replaced as others have done. My heart goes out to those who don't have AppleCare and are understandably frustrated about the cost of repairs. I encourage you to let Apple know what you think about this defect. This ain't fun, but please keep it useful. Be firm that you wish to enjoy your machine longer, and would appreciate their assistance as the makers in doing so.
It's such a discomforting phenomenon when you buy a product, it holds up well for the first year and then some, but afterwards, flaws — not just normal wear and tear — start to appear after the default warranty expires. This isn't the most long-range example yet; many moons ago, I had a Sony TV that failed one day. I would've thought "It was just getting old…" were it not for a repairman who knew that this particular model failed in droves at the 7-year mark due to a burned-out tube.
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Hi all, I also got a Macbook pro 1.1 with the exact same problem, now under SL since few days, the problem seems ot appear even more than under Leopard, very weird. I would like to know if there is any news on the side of Apple support about a possible exchange program or for them to admit that there is serious problems due to this borign X1600.
In order to still use your computer, one of the thing you can do is remove the ATIRadeon Drivers.
What I did is to save it on my external Hard Drive in order to be able to replace it later.
The GPU is simply desactivate and all the job is done by the Dual Core.
Of course it is not so good as expected and HD movies lag to much but at least you can use your computer and wait for Apple and AMD to find something and change it for free.
Here is the list of the file to delete :
– /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX1000.kext
– /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX1000GA.plugin
– /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX1000GLDriver.bundle
– /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX1000VADriver.bundle
– /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000.kext
– /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000GA.plugin
– /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver.bundle
– /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeonX2000VADriver.bundle
Good luck
I just realised how much I was lucky to have my NVidia card changed for free.
To precise that I did the modification given by Natim, and since now, no more display bug, I'll try to see if when the laptop go higher in temperature there is still noting.
The bundles given by Natim are the paths for Snow Leopard, you can find them by doing a search in a terminal
sudo find / -iname "*radeon*"
I've created a question on Superuser website to know if someone found other tips or to gather people or tell others in the same case that they are not alone.
http://superuser.com/questions/73518/ati-x1600-driver-problem-on-mac
Hi,
I'm French, so excuse my very poor english…
I have the same problem with a macbook pro 2.16 GHz w ATI 1600 on leopard and SL. MBP freeze after displaying pixel's lines. Does the solution exposed on your post solve the problem with leopard ?
Thanks for your answers
SD
Hi,
Your english is good
Je sais de quoi je parle hein 
Yes the solution I found works, but the problem is that you'll loose 3d acceleration support and even when you'll use the expose function to show all the windows, the movement will be very horrible, not smooth at all.
So for now I'm running ubuntu and with the 3d open source driver it's working fine, with a normal use (whereas in Mac OSX even in normal use I had freeze/bugs)
I also sent an email to apple but no answer yet…
Thanks for your very quick answuer. I will try to delete ATI's driver. Is it the same way to do with leopard than SL (like you describe ?)
Your french is good, i supposed you're in france, because it's very early, now in USA ?
By
That's the same way I think, I didn't try under Leopard, but if you use the command find, you'll locate them.
Maybe also have a look at this post http://torley.com/macbook-pro-with-ati-radeon-x1600-distorted-video-glitches/comment-page-1#comment-55273
This user seems to be able to still play movies but on OSX I was unable to play a simple divx smoothly…
@ducout: non non je suis juste francais et en Chine
J'espere que tu pourras solutionner le probleme avec un OSX qui tourne pas au ralentit et sans freeze.
Thanks for your blog. I, too, have been getting the horizontal-line distortion in Firefox (as seen in Fig. 3 above). Same computer — MacBook Pro 2GHz, 2Ghz RAM with ATI Radeon X1600. Purchased mid-July 2006. Problem only became apparent in the past week. AppleCare expired and there is no indication from Apple that they'll extend the warranty due to a defect in the chipset. This is an *expensive* replacement, running around $900, I believe. If I get any more crashes (which have begun to happen), I'll have to opt for trashing the drivers. Wish Apple would pay attention to this issue.
In order to let Apple know, Thank you to vote for the problem and leave a comment to indicate that you have the same here :
http://superuser.com/questions/73518/ati-x1600-driver-problem-on-mac
last saturday i've tried to change thermal paste on the GPU and CPU. I've seen that Apple Thermal paste was crunchy and solid. I've change for new artic silver 5 paste. But there is still horizontal line as soon as the temperature of GPU is over 60°C. But no more freeze…
With fan control, i'm able to keep GPU"temperature under 50°C but with high speed of fan and a very noisy using. In this case, no line and no freeze, even with high load like flash player on youtube for example.
Thanks for the info!
Before going to the last-resort option of entirely disabling the Graphics card (as shown here [3]), I instead tried to lower the temps that the GPU get to – this has appeared to work very well!
The permanent solution (for me) was using the free & Excellent "Fan Control" SysPref – simply increase the "Base Speed" (for me, from 1500rpm to 2000rpm) and I also reduce the "Upper Threshold" to 70°C – thus the fans will work harder to keep temps down should they rise.
I coupled that with "iStat Menus" (I think it's ShareWare) to monitor CPU & GPU temp (obviously GPU is more important here).
Dace appears to have the right numbers – as long as my GPU temps is around or below 48°, no line glitches, and no freezes!
I like this solution because, in theory, it will always makes sure the temp stays below the crash-point (with tweaking of the fan-rpm vs. CPU-Temp settings). I suppose One can assume that CPU temp and GPU temp are correlated – they are in the same aluminum box!
At 2000rpm, the fans are still barely audible (at least in my office with 3 PC's running their loud fans). If I ever see the temp rise too much, I'll simply increase the fan-speed/cpu-temp slope again. I'd rather a loud usable computer than a quiet dead one!
Thanks to everyone who posted their thoughts, it was very helpful in tracking down this elusive problem!
Screenshots here:
[Fan Control & iStat Menu monitoring][1]
[iStat Menu Setup][2]
[1]: http://www.ocpn.ece.ucsb.edu/index.php/publications/category/51-demis?download=956%3Afan-control-a-istat-menus-cpu-gpu-temp
[2]: http://www.ocpn.ece.ucsb.edu/index.php/publications/category/51-demis?download=957%3Aistat-menus-cpu-a-gpu-setup
[3]: http://superuser.com/questions/73518/ati-x1600-driver-problem-on-mac
Oh, system is:
MacBook Pro 1×2.16GHz Intel Core Duo, 2GB RAM, OS X 10.5.8, ATI Radeon X1600 (256MB), Dual-monitor (probably increases the GPU temp)
Also, clarification for anyone who needs it:
The way to use "Fan Control" is to basically make the slope of the graph steeper.
Also, look at the crosshair, and make sure that whatever you adjust makes it go UP (higher fan speed) – I found myself sometimes accidentally lowering the fan speed while making the slope steeper.
Update:
My computer used to freeze once a day.
This has NOT happened again since I implemented the fixes mentioned above (11 days ago)! I am quite happy with the Fan Control SysPref – it is really good.
Hi, I have the same 1st-gen 2.16 ghz Macbook Pro with the ATI X1600 graphics card. However, I don't have any of the problems in those above. Mine is more similar to this one affecting the current 17-inch unibody Macbook Pro's, http://www.pcworld.com/article/161993/apple_offers_firmware_fix_for_macbook_pro_vertical_line_problem.html . I got smcFanControl to raise the idle fans from 1000rpm to 2000rpm. I'll have to wait and see if I will see the green lines again. I do notice similar graphics problems with some of the Macs at my school, but of course I don't have administrator privilages to try out fan control on those.
After trying out the smcFanControl, it seems to lower my computer temperature by maybe 10~20 degrees Celsius, but it still doesn't help the vertical line problem :-/.
mine were horizontal lines, like those shown in the pics above. I also saw the SysPrefs fading-blue thing (as shown above). I never saw the white-wiped Safari though.
Just a thought: perhaps your "vertical line" problem is something else? Check to see what your GPU temp is – is it always above 55°C? If not, maybe they're not heating too much.
I too experienced the heat problems with my MacBook pro with the x1600. I am convinced that the graphic issues on my machine are directly related to the temperature of the GPU. Once the temperature gets above 60c my system starts to exhibit graphics glitches (tearing striping etc…).
- I have been using smcfancontrol for years, which does help significantly, but does not help when I get both cores running full blast for more than 5 minutes in a row.
- I have carefully cleaned out the old thermal compound and applied arctic silver, which only reduced the temperatures by about 1-2 degrees celsius. When you do this procedure I made the easily correctable mistake of not tightening the heatsink screws tight enough at first, which amplified the temperature problem
*** – the real solution to this problem for me was to vacuum the rear vent with a powerful (2000W) vacuum cleaner. I spent several minutes pressing the wand of the vacuum tightly against the crack and moving it back and forth where the screen meets the main body of the notebook. I went to the trouble of vacuuming the croissant crumbs out of the keyboard at the same time
. You will know when you get to the right spots because the smcfancontrol display will show your fans revving up to 7500rpm when the vacuum is over each fan exhaust port. This cleaning procedure shaved at least 15 degrees off of my temperatures.
My computer used to run at 58c at idle, and now it sits at 40c. It used to peak (and often lockup) at 75c, now I am hard pressed to get it above 60c. I am considering holding on to this ancient relic for even longer, even though I had previously scheduled replacement this spring.
I don't have this problem with lines all over my screen, but since I am working on some full window video projects in Flash, I noticed that the videos drop a lot of frames and the video lags like a mf. It's not normal for a dual core 2,16 GHz system with 2 GB of memory to play 720p video (like on my website http://www.inglorie.nl) with these problems.
I have replaced my hard drive a year ago or so for a bigger 500 GB. When I opened my Macbook, I also cleaned the fans. (@ tajh) It's pretty easy to do so because the fans are using magnets in stead of bearings. Check a tutorial before you do so and buy a proper TORX screwdriver.
I am very curious about updates on the X1600 driver! We'll see.
I have the same machine (2.16 ghz/15"/radeon 1600) have been fighting this video issue for 3 months. Deleted drivers, it now boots (before only in safe mode) Video is affected, but at this point it is better. I still have a square around my cursor with even horizontal lines. Thanks for the driver suggestion. I will be interested to see if there is any further start up issues.
Never had this problem before upgrading to Snow Leopard. Now I get ugly distortions in images both in iPhoto and Aperture. I have an iMac 5.1, Intel C2D 2,16MHz, and a ATI X1600 graphics card.
@Stefan Alsenmyr
Were you running Tiger or Leopard before upgrading to Snow Leopard?
I was running Leopard!
This issue started appearing for me a couple years back shortly after an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard. I tried uninstalling Leopard and going back to Tiger but had the same issue. Many others have noticed this correlation also.
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